Step 6: Staying the Course

“Run with as pure a heart as you can. Run a campaign that you’d be proud of.”

Ronnie Cho, 2018 campaign manager and 2020 senior advisor to Lauren Underwood, Illinois 14th

In some ways, the challenge of remaining you will only intensify the more successful you are in your campaign. That’s in part because, if you win your primary, you will encounter a level of personal scrutiny like never before. You may attract major media attention — a mixed blessing. You’ll also gain at least some recognition and support from the party powers-that-be. That support can be transformative. But it will also come with its own set of complications.

If you win your primary, a lot of good things will start to happen.

The endorsements you tried to get early on will very likely start to come through. Some will come with no money, and some can come with quite a lot (often in the form of independent expenditures — money from Super PACs that don’t coordinate directly with your campaign) — and with a lot of technical support and visibility for your campaign, too. Whatever happens won’t necessarily occur all at once: you might, if you’re a longshot in a swing state, get just a little bit of funding at first, but then, if your candidacy really becomes promising, you could be picked for the DCCC’s coveted Red to Blue list of candidates running strong campaigns in swing districts who receive extra support for campaign strategy and funding.

All of that is indisputably great. But there is one caveat: getting endorsements and funding from the DC establishment — for federal races — comes with some strings attached. And candidates in state or local races may face similar pressures from the state or local party and party establishment figures.

Specifically, some of the endorsements will require you to sign contracts with consultants from a pre-approved list. Many of these consultants — also called “vendors” — are very smart and very skilled at the work that they do. But there’s a problem with the ecosystem in which they operate. While they all want their candidates to win, they also want to make money. (And at the top DC consultancies, they make a lot of money.) That leads to a lot of misaligned incentives, in terms of how the work is done and where the money goes and what’s in the best interest of individual candidates.

Here’s how it works: Every time that one of these consultants provides a service for a candidate — buys a TV ad, or creates and sends out a piece of mail — they make a commission, and that commission is paid by the campaign. So, at the end of the day, whether or not their services are effective for a particular campaign (and for our candidates, it’s far from a given that traditional approaches to mail and advertising are beneficial), the consultant is incentivized to sell you as many TV ads or to get you to send out as many pieces of mail as possible. Usually, your general consultant handles all this for you, which can make it seem like you’re getting a good “package deal” as well as a convenience when you sign with them. But none of it is transparent: you don’t know, when your campaign writes the general consultant a check for a TV ad or a mailing, how much of what you’re paying is for the ad or mailer and how much is being pocketed by the consultant.

And here’s where it gets more difficult still: In Washington, D.C., there’s essentially a revolving door that will take someone who has been working at one organization within the party establishment for a few years to a consulting firm (an advertising firm, or a mail firm, for example) for a couple of years, and the cycle continues. However nicely this works for the party and the consultancies, however, it means that individual candidates and their campaigns end up, once again, locked into a very closed system that really isn’t set up to accommodate — much less to embrace — people who have historically been outsiders.

Very few of the companies that are on the list of “approved vendors” are headed by people of color. Very few employ many people of color. The vast majority of consultants themselves have never worked with a candidate of color before. And this can lead to some very bad advice.

We’ve seen countless examples where an outsider candidate was given advice from DC experts to “tone themselves down.” Making themselves over into someone who’s more “like a candidate” — which really means more like who candidates and elected officials have always been. Black women have most frequently and most egregiously been on the receiving end of this. But, to a lesser extent, white women get it, too, if it’s assumed that they don’t conform to whatever the expectations are in the communities where they’re running. And men of color have their own indignities to deal with as well — particularly when it comes to what they wear, and whether or not it’s “acceptable” for a candidate.

It’s hard enough, out on the campaign trail, to have people commenting on your hair and your clothes and your weight. To be asked, if you’re a young woman, if “you’re sure you know what you’re doing,” and if you’re a mother, “who’s at home taking care of your kids.” To have people asking you why you’re so ambitious, why in such a hurry; why you don’t scale down to something more “realistic,” like running for school board.  (“The issues I care about are federal,” is a good answer for that.)

When the comments come from your own side — as when Black women are told they need a “makeover” to appear more “professional” (i.e. more white) — it’s far more painful. It’s easy to internalize the negativity, especially if it reinforces messages that candidates have received all their lives. When that happens, very old and pernicious forms of self-doubt may start to re-emerge: “Maybe I shouldn’t run. Maybe I’m not the right person.”  And besides being psychologically wounding, that kind of feedback can do real harm to a campaign. Unsurprisingly, when some candidates we’ve worked with have altered their messaging or self-presentation in ways that they’d been told would make them more “palatable,” the result was inauthentic, and it backfired.

Keep the Faith

This is another example of why, now and throughout your campaign, you’ll need to have your own validators: staffers and advisers, funders and voters. Your people. And it’s why you have to validate yourself by reminding yourself, over and over again, why you’re running — for change that can make a momentous difference for the people of your district. Believing profoundly in the utter necessity of your campaign and keeping focused on your larger mission will strengthen you, especially when things get tough and you need a thick skin.

If and when the big-time consultants enter the scene, there are ramifications for staff that you’ll have to be aware of, too. If your senior staffers are young and relatively inexperienced, it’s likely to be very hard for them to stand up to the emissaries from D.C. and make themselves heard.  Pushing back could really hurt them professionally, too, because the world of campaign hiring is a small one, and all roads lead back to a small number of organizations in D.C. “There’s a great pressure to please them,” a campaign manager told us, “because their organizations become an echo chamber of who’s good or bad to work with and ought to be hired.”

As the campaign’s leader, it will be your responsibility to stand by your staff when appropriate, speak up for yourself when necessary, but also to judge when and how to pick your battles. Be willing to listen to outsider advice. And don’t burn any bridges. You’ll need, long-term, to keep up really good relations with the big consulting firms and the national endorsing groups in Washington. You don’t want to antagonize the establishment if you’re fortunate enough to have won its support as a first-time candidate. And if your race is receiving generous amounts of money from the party and its allies, your ability to go your own way is going to be pretty limited.

If your campaign ultimately has enough money, you will be doing message testing and polling, and you’ll be advised to change your message and your self-presentation with the goal of ironing out whatever wrinkles or personality particularities bother some voters. But if your gut tells you that you’re being pushed in the wrong direction, you have to defend yourself, your team, and your district.

It’s the authentic you, after all, who won your primary election. Who inspired whole teams of volunteers. Who raised enough money to stay in the game. And it’s your staff who know you, know your district and — if they’ve helped get you this far, know what it takes to reach your voters. The very best way you can stand up for them is by making sure they have the support they need to keep doing their jobs well. If possible, help your senior staff find mentors — experienced people who are outside of the immediate circle of your campaign, who can serve as a sounding board, give gut checks, and also be savvy about all the different incentives and motivations at play.

In the end, what will be in your best interest is to find a way to navigate the distance between the party line and your own truth, to “meet them where they are and give them what they need,” as one former campaign manager likes to put it. And then finesse the result so that it’s real. That’s why those Post-It Notes from back in the mission statement exercise days are so helpful and worth keeping. When in doubt, go back to the clear and simple message that guided you from the start, and see if you’re still aligned with it.

Managing Your Media

At this point in your campaign, your relationship with the news media is going to be something of a tightrope walk, too.

On the one hand, you’ll really need their attention. On the other, if your campaign is making news, they’re going to need access to you. To keep the relationship mutually beneficial, you will have to make smart choices.

Counterintuitive though it may seem, it’s your local reporters who are likely to be the most important journalists for you to cultivate — for the very same reason that it was so important early on for you to sit down with anyone and everyone with their finger on the pulse of your district. Local reporters, editors, columnists and radio or TV personalities know your district and its residents. They know what issues matter locally, they know your opponent’s background, and they know what Democrats have attempted to run for your seat before. They’re the most likely to really take the time to get to know you — and theirs may well be the voice that your voters respect the most. (And their publication or station may well be the one that your voters actually read, watch or listen to.)

Once you’re past your primary and are getting close to the general election, your campaign will, most likely, bring on either a full-time communications director or a consultant. That’s because national media attention is very tricky. It’s seductive and hard to turn down. It can make a major difference in your fundraising, giving you access to a vastly larger pool of potential donors. When Lauren Underwood made the cover of Time Magazine in January 2018, her fundraising numbers went through the roof. The headline on Liuba Grechen Shirley’s post-primary New York Times feature — “She’s Trying to Pull an Ocasio-Cortez. Her Target: Pete King” — wasn’t exactly on-message, but it was eye-catching, and in a summer when there was a lot of excitement around insurgent, outsider female candidates, it turned out to be a real turning point for her, too.

You shouldn’t turn down all requests from national media (if you do, they’ll stop calling). You should just be thoughtful and judicious. If you grant interviews to the New York Times or the Washington Post or Politico or the big TV networks, you really have to be ready for your quotes to ricochet around the entire country for days or even weeks, months, or years on social media. In addition, you should be aware that, if the big news outlets are coming to you — a brand-new candidate — they’re probably putting you in a big national trend story, which may or may not be conceived with an angle that’s helpful for you in your district.

Remember Who Matters – and Get Them Out to Vote

The closer and closer you get to your election, the more intense the pressures and pace of campaigning will be. It’s easy to develop tunnel vision. But you’ve got to stay grounded. You have come so far, and you have just one major challenge that remains: getting out the vote.

So do what you have to do to keep yourself healthy and well-resourced. Summon up all your energy. Take the time to rev up your staffers, volunteers and supporters — you’re going to need them to put everything they’ve got into going door-to-door, calling, texting, emailing, putting up signs, handing out literature, and helping people figure out where (their local polling place) and when (election day, or early voting info) and how (do they need a ride to the polls? can they vote by mail?) they can vote. And get yourself out in front of voters: canvassing, making public appearances, shaking hands, listening, making sure that people feel heard, and reminding them of their power to bring change by voting.

Getting out the vote (GOTV) is a very distinct — and hugely important — stage of campaigning. Typically, it starts the first day of early voting, the day vote by mail starts, and/or the last four days of the campaign including election day. Everything you do in the earlier stages of the campaign is to build capacity for this ultimate end point. During GOTV, you’re no longer convincing people to vote for you. Instead, you’re focusing your efforts on the people you’ve already identified as your voters and putting everything you’ve got into physically getting them to cast their ballots.

A Few Final Words Before Election Day 

With the finish line in view, we’re going to leave you with just a couple of do’s and don’ts to keep in mind as you head toward the finish line. 

Don’t make yourself or your staff crazy by measuring yourself against other candidates.

You’re going to be anxious, and it will be a big temptation. For Congress, for example, with 435 elections for the US House in any one cycle, there’s always going to be someone who seems to be doing something better than you. For state and local races, you may face the same pressures. Maybe another candidate is actually someone you know. Maybe, out of a genuine desire to help, they give you advice, which you excitedly bring back to your nonplussed campaign manager.

The problem is, as any parent of any school-age child has ever said: there’s no use in comparing yourself to others. You have to do you. Every race is different. Every candidate is different. And if you can’t do you for yourself — because your self-confidence is flagging with fatigue and constant stress — do it for your campaign staff. Because they’re down in the trenches, trying to move mountains for you day after day. Second-guessing their strategy at the eleventh hour will only create unnecessary pressure and strain, right when you need them at their best.

Don’t over-spend.

In the final days of a close campaign, your funders and advisors from D.C. are going to tell you to “spend every penny” and “leave it all on the field.” It’s true that it’s urgently important to get yourself and your name out there — and to get voters out to vote — but you’ve got to be careful as well not to spend money you don’t have. You’re going to need to have enough money left in the bank to pay staff salaries in the period when you wrap up after the election (and if you can afford to pay people through the end of the year, all the better), and you should also have some reserve to pay any legal fees in case you end up with a contested election.

Do take the time to pause and remember how far you’ve come.

We will always remember how it felt, near the end of Lauren Underwood’s first campaign, when she had picked up a lot of steam and was reaching the point where she posed a serious threat to her Republican opponent. The race had become so close, and had attracted so much attention from Washington, that Joe Biden came and did a rally for her a couple of weeks before the general election. Many local and national media outlets were in attendance. Right after Biden spoke, he got back into his car and left, and all the press immediately formed a gaggle around Underwood. She had dozens of microphones shoved into her face, and almost as many cameras behind them. Everyone was asking questions at the same time. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced; she had barely ever done an interview that was more than one-on-one before. And yet, in that moment, she stepped up, and grew into it. She managed the situation, answering those questions calmly, as though she had been doing it her entire life. She knew which questions to take and which to pivot away from, remained calm and collected, and gave great answers. She was ready for the moment — not cocky, but confident. And it all came off as completely real — because it was.

We’ve kept a picture of that moment because it reminds us of the arc that we hope all our candidates will experience. And that growth is what learning to run for Congress is all about.

Last but not least: do try to bear in mind on Election Day that winning is not a zero-sum game.

Of course, after all you’ve done, you’ll want more than anything else to win your race. But there’s one last thing we want you to hear, and it comes from the heart: If you’re a new candidate, an insurgent who wasn’t born with a silver spoon and a ready-made bullhorn, and you’ve made it to this point, then — win or lose — you’ve already triumphed.